Last year, four people in Arizona were killed by lightning, according to National Weather Service records. Two were a honeymooning couple, hit on an overlook near Fredonia.

"There is no safe place outdoors," said Ron Holle, a meteorologist with Vaisala, a Tucson company that monitors lighting strikes around the world.

The National Weather Service studied 261 lightning fatalities between 2006 and 2013. It found that fishermen are far more likely to get struck by lightning than golfers are. Campers and boaters also are at higher risk. Males accounted for 81 percent of the fatalities.

Arizona receives about 600,000 lightning flashes annually, according to the National Lightning Detection Network, based in Tucson. The odds of a person getting struck in their lifetime are one in 12,000.